Wednesday, 4 May 2016

The Fightback Starts Here

The British government is running a covert “propaganda” campaign
intended to project its counter-extremism message to British Muslims through
supposedly “grassroots” community organisations, a report published on Monday
claims.

Several recent high-profile counter-extremism initiatives that
appeared to be the work of non-government organisations were actually
orchestrated by a media company, Breakthrough Media, with close links to the
Home Office's Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU), the report
says.

They includeFightback
Starts Here, a counter-extremism campaign launched last July which
was widely described as “Muslim-led” and backed by a broad coalition of
charities, campaign groups and community organisations.

Another Breakthough project was a website,Help
for Syria, which was launched in 2013, ostensibly by three Muslim
charities, to encourage people to donate money rather than joining aid convoys
or travelling to perform humanitarian work in the war-stricken country.

In some cases, the charities and organisations which fronted the
campaigns were not aware of Breakthrough Media's close links to the Home
Office, while Breakthough employees were required to sign the Official Secrets
Act in order to conceal that relationship,the report says.

According to CAGE, the civil liberties group focused on issues
affecting Muslim communities which produced the report, the campaign amounts to
an attempt to manufacture “state-sponsored grassroots activism” and the “first
concerted foray into cyberspace by the British state with the aim of covertly
engineering thethoughts of its
citizens”.

“RICU is using ‘grassroots’ organisations as mouthpieces for a
Prevent-sanctioned agenda, which justifies a securitised approach to all
aspects of Muslim life,” said Asim Qureshi, CAGE's research director and one of
the authors of the report.

“There is also evidence to suggest that the government is using the
Official Secrets Act to hide its relationship with the role of Breakthrough
Media, the PR company driving the propaganda. This suggests an abuse of power
and a contempt for open society.”

RICU is based in the Home Office's Office for Security and
Counter-Terrorism (OSCT) and has been involved since it was established in 2007
in communicating the government's Prevent counter-extremism strategy.

Much of its work remains secretive, but Home Secretary Theresa May
told parliament's joint security committee in 2011 that RICU was “currently
road-testing some quite innovative approaches to counter-ideological messages”.

'Sharper and more professional'

An updated edition of the government's counter-terrorism strategy
published in the same year also said that RICU would be required to “deliver
sharper and more professional counter-narrative products”.

Breakthrough Mediais a “creative communications agency”
with offices in London and Nairobi whose past projects include a documentary
for Al Jazeera about the mayor of Mogadishu, and a film calledFaith on the Frontline produced
for the UK's Armed Forces Muslim Association.

But other projects about which the report raises concerns do not
feature in its online portfolio.

The Fightback Starts Here campaign was fronted by the Leicester-based
Federation of Muslim Organisations (FMO) and consisted of a video, a website
and aletter published in the Guardian
newspapersigned by
representatives of “charities, civil society organisations and safeguarding
groups” who pledged to work together to defeat the “poisonous ideology” of
extremism.

The letter was also signed by relatives of David Haines and Alan
Henning, two British hostages killed by the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria.

A report of the launch in the Guardian quoted Suleman Nagdi, a
spokesperson for the FMO, as saying that while other anti-extremism efforts
such as the Prevent strategy were top-down, Fightback Starts Here was grassroots-based.

“Engagement with the community is
just as crucial as any government policy. You can legislate as much as you
want, but there must be a buy-in from the community. Hopefully, this will be
that buy-in,” Nagdi said.

But Luman Ali, another spokesperson for the FMO, told Middle East Eye
that the organisation had been approached by Breakthrough about the project,
and that the media company had funded and organised it.

Breakthrough also produced an online radio station, Ummah Sonic,
broadcast via theFMO's
website.

“The FMO is committed to fighting extremism in all its forms. We are
happy to take part in any initiatives that focus on such a theme regardless of
what level that is at,” Ali said.

“In terms of the Fightback campaign we lent our support because it
spoke against all forms of extremism.

“Had it been against only one form of
extremism we would not have supported such a campaign. We have not received a
single penny from any of these campaigns in terms of funding.”

Breakthrough Media also approached three charities, Hand in Hand for
Syria, Syria Relief and Human Care Syria, about the Help for Syria website.

A former employee of one of the charities quoted in the report said
the company had said it could advertise their work, help them with media and
even provide funds for events.

Stopped returning emails

But the charities subsequently fell out with Breakthrough over the
message of the campaign and stopped returning emails.

The company also refused
to tell them who was funding the project, the former employee said.

Another project produced by Breakthrough was “Open
Your Eyes,” a web-based video project “exposing the
reality of ISIS [IS],” launched by Upstanding Neighbourhoods, a
Birmingham-based community group.

In August last year, Upstanding Neighbourhoods was singled out for
praise by May during a visit to Birmingham.

“It is about groups, as we have seen today - people in their
communities, volunteers coming forward, working together in partnership because
the government can't do this on its own,” May said, according to theBirmingham Postnewspaper.

The company was also a consultant
on another IS-themed film,Not
Another Brother, produced for the Quilliam counter-extremism think tank
which has received Home Office funding in the past.

The CAGE report cites a now-deleted blog post written by a Breakthrough
employee suggesting that new employees are required to sign the Official
Secrets Act.

“The company website gives a good account of their work although much
of the detail is generalised simply because what they do and who it is for, in
the main, is governed in the UK by the Official Secrets Act – which each
employee must sign on joining – and divisive in nature, as it involves raising
awareness and, in many cases, opposing vested political / religious interests
for the greater good – both in the UK and abroad,” an archived version of the
blog post says.

Social media workshops

Evidence of a relationship between Breakthrough Media and RICU is also
suggested by a statement by Eric Pickles, the former communities and local
government minister, whotold Parliament in 2014that his department had organised
social media workshops “in conjunction with Home Office Research Information
and Communication Unit and Breakthrough Media”.

“Based on the material we have gathered, there seems to be a strong
possibility that Breakthrough Media have not only been tasked with working with
or for the Home Office to further counter narratives, but that [they're]
protected under the Official Secrets Act in order to hide such relationships,”
the report says.

“It might be suggested, that the government is attempting to engineer
a debate around Muslim life in the UK, by promoting certain organisations and
views, allowing them to present themselves as independent and based within the
grassroots of their communities.”

Qureshi said the findings of the report should be a cause of concern
to the British public and confirmed “the hidden hand of those who wish to
manufacture consent for the expansion of the security state.

“We are
calling for greater scrutiny of RICU work, to include an independent audit to
assess the ethics and cost of the whole programme.”

Breakthrough Media had not responded to requests for comment at the
time of publication.

A Home Office spokesperson told MEE that working in partnership with
communities and civil society groups to confront extremism was a key part of
the government's Prevent strategy.

“The battle against terrorism and extremism must be fought on several
fronts including countering its twisted narrative online and in our
communities. The need for this work is recognised at a national and
international level.

“We are very proud of the support RICU has provided to
organisations working on the frontline to challenge the warped ideology of
groups such as Daesh [IS], and to protect communities.

“This work can involve sensitive issues, vulnerable communities
and hard to reach audiences and it has been important to build relationships
out of the media glare

“We respect the bravery of individuals and organisations
who choose to speak out against violence and extremism and it is right that we
support, empower and protect them.

“Ourguiding
principle has to be whether or not any organisation we work with is itself
happy to talk publicly about what they do.

“At the same time we are as open as
possible about RICU’s operating model, and have referenced the role of RICU in
a number of publications and in Parliament.”

Ben Hayes, a counter-terrorism consultant and the co-author of the
report, told MEE its findings highlighted the need for an “honest
conversation about the impact, legitimacy and effectiveness of the government's
own secret propaganda programmes”.

“We should be under no illusion as to what is going on here.

“When
the government starts using community groups and NGOs to disseminate government
propaganda to hoodwink the public into believing they are authentic,
'grassroots' campaigns, it damages everyone in civil society.